Compass AFM - PatientManager® Development

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Design Theme

When designing the theme for PatientManager, we are going to start with ideas that we know work and have received very good feedback in the past.

If you expect PatientManager to have the typical database grey background or look like an upgraded spreadsheet, well that will not be the case.

Colours will be bright and changing dependant on module and type of layout.

This is a screenshot from our current FacilityManager solution.

All corners are rounded, as this has been proven to reduce both eye tiredness and improve alertness and efficiency. Fonts will be contrasted against the background colour to make them easier to read. There will be multiple means of navigation so finding the required layout should at most be only 1 or 2 clicks.

The various modules will be like chapters in a book, with a distinct homepage for each, from where you will be easily able to access the related layouts, perform searches or generate reports.

The concept of the theme will be 'easy on the eye' and easy to use'.

If you are a medical consultant working for an Emergency Trauma Hospital or know of another consultant or hospital who would like to collaborate with us (CompassAFM) on the development of PatientManager, please contact us at info@compasspatientmanager.com

We would love to hear from you.

Dominic Murnane

MD Compass AFM

PatientManager® and its logo is a registered trademark and owned by Compass Software Technology Limited (T/A CompassAFM). All product images are protected by copyright© (2019 -2021) and may not be used without the written permission of the owner - Compass Software Technology Limited. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Getting Started

So lets get PatientManager started...

Over the past weeks we have been reviewing what layouts, scripts, concepts etc., that already exist in our other database (FacilityManager) that we could reuse or modify to facilitate a faster build time. In fact we found quite a few. The technical (in the broadest meaning of the word) similarities between maintaining the health of plant and equipment and maintaining the health of a patient do have similarities. For example;

Checking a patient into the Emergency Department -> Logging a piece of equipment for repair
Assigning a consultant to a patient -> Assigning an engineer to carry out the repair
Booking a bed for a patient -> Booking a parking space for a staff member.

So you can see a trend here.

It is time to start building to see what can be accomplished easily and what will take more time and insight. Over the next few posts we will looking at:

Choosing a design theme and building a homepage layout
Building a 'Setup' Layout
Setting up client modifiable data fields and lists
Creating a patient information record.

We would love to hear from you.

Dominic Murnane

MD Compass AFM

Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Building a Plan (Implementation) - Part 3

Implementation of the PatientManager database will take time and will be individual to each hospital. The individuality will be one of the great benefits offered by PatientManager. We will be using the FileMaker database engine which will allow us to do this. For the hospital this means;

Implementation is a team effort involving all parties from consultants to administrative staff and input from all is the most valuable tool in the development of PatientManager.

A generic PatientManager database that can be tailored to their own requirements.
The hospital will not have to adapt its patient care and work practices to match fixed software requirements / restrictions.
No downtime while modifications are implemented
Many modifications can be carried out in minutes / or a few hours.
Live consultation as modifications are being carried out.

PatientManager will have to run alongside whatever system is being currently used for many months to ensure it performs faultlessly to ensure patient safety. This for a period will require additional administrative manpower to operate both systems but will be essential.

During this period, certain modifications will be definitely required or discovered. Again this will fit with our policy of continuous improvement.

We would love to hear from you.

Dominic Murnane

MD Compass AFM

Monday, November 25, 2019

Building a Plan (Outline) - Part 2

While Part 1 of the outline plan is mainly concerned with the entry and immediate treatment in the Emergency Department, Part 2 looks at when a longer stay within the ED or possible admission to the main hospital is required.

When a patient passes through the ED and is discharged within hours, the patient documentation is no way as complex as that needed for longer attendances. In these cases the patient -

May have a serious or life-threatening injury.
May be experiencing serious complications as a result of an existing condition.
May have come in contact with and have been infected by a contagious disease.
May have serious psychiatric issues.
May need surgery.
Many other reasons.

In the above cases, data management requirements will grow exponentially.

Also required will be -

Tracking of patients to theatre, x-ray, scans and other locations.
A wide range of forms and other documentation to be stored as a separate record but including the ED documentations (Admission Record)
Bed Management
Patient Billing for ED 'services'
In-Patient Billing
Follow up Out-Patient appointments
And more...

We would love to hear from you.

Dominic Murnane

MD Compass AFM

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Building a Plan (Outline) - Part 1

They say talk is cheap. Could CompassAFM produce a software solution as good as or better than a multi-national software company. We had done it before with FacilityManager.

We have to build a stage 1 working model of our proposed software to show both our concept and competence to interested parties - which we have to find! Unless we could convince ourselves of our own ability first, it would be pointless approaching others. Were we going to re-invent the wheel, no. The plan was just to make it a whole lot better.

As with FacilityManager, the plan was to approach the project totally from a user perspective, not a software developers dream of the ideal solution. Here is where the almost daily interaction with a major working Emergency Department would pay off. Over the months, Mr. Murnane had been listening to the comments, concerns, issues and wishes of consultants, doctors, nurses, healthcare assistants and clerical staff and these would be the foundation of building a plan for a new solution.

The biggest issue heard again and again was the need to be able to instantly access historic patient information and to be able to add to this in a way to live collaborate with all the other members of the patient care team. A paper based solution cannot do this.

So what is needed -

From the time a patient s referred by a GP (doctor) or has been accessed by Paramedics, a live data feed on the patients condition should be established with the receiving hospital.

Data on all previous hospital attendances, procedures and outcomes should be fully accessible to the medical team prior to patient arrival.

Patient identification should be possible in 99.9% of cases in the event the patient is unresponsive due to medical condition. (Unless patient is a new attendance).

Data flow - As the patient moves through the Emergency Department and beyond, their data (treatment, medication, test results, scans, medical reviews etc., must be updated an readily available to consultants, doctors and other healthcare professionals.

For this the data needs to be available both on static PC's and mobile devices - tablets.

Data Transfer - Output from other medical devices needs a pathway or other means to transfer to the PatientManager database.

Data Lists - Numerous other sources of data such as - Daily Consultants On-Call need to be easily integrated.

Above all the PatientManager database must be very easy and intuitive to use.

We would love to hear from you.

Dominic Murnane

MD Compass AFM

Monday, October 14, 2019

Where the Patientmanager Idea was born

2015

During a business trip to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for CompassAFM, I (Dominic Murnane, Managing Director, CompassAFM) had made a couple of sales presentations for our other product FacilityManager to hospitals located there. One of which, I had the opportunity to visit was just so far ahead of anything I had seen in Ireland, with a totally paperless system for managing patients and their care. On presentation, each patient was given an Apple iPad to keep with them during their visit which accessed their full medical history. Doctors and nurses then referenced and added to the live data during the patients visit. Scans and test results were fed directly to the iPad as they were completed.

Even with FacilityManager, CompassAFM had not reached this level of automation and paperless administration. However, this was a one-off system designed, built and operated on an unlimited budget, which would be hard to replicate elsewhere. A seed of an idea was sown, but there it stayed.

2018

In 2018 an opportunity presented itself where I was able to actively engage long-term (over 3 years) with the Emergency Department in a major trauma hospital. My previous experience had been limited to a couple of short visits as a patient. I would never have envisioned how dynamic, busy, complex and team oriented was the environment that presented itself. Now I was able to see how and ED operated from the perspective of a staff member.

I had expected a more software orientated environment for patient care, but as with most other hospitals, I have since researched, software was used to track patient location and events whereas paper was used still to record patient care and treatment. This made the overall patient administration very time consuming and laborious. The idea resurfaced - could CompassAFM build a better software solution? There was a long learning curve ahead.

2019

By mid-2019, the idea was developing, I had decided to continue using the FileMaker Pro database platform due to its flexibility, adaptability and ease of use. There were many concepts and design features already built into FacilityManager that could be reused or modified.

Initial research on software companies supplying EDIS / EHR software indicated that it was -

Extremely expensive and beyond the reach of many hospital budgets
User unfriendly
One solution to suit all, very difficult or impossible to modify to suit individual hospital requirements.

The question now was could CompassAFM do better? YES.

It was time to build a plan.

We would love to hear from you.

Dominic Murnane

MD Compass AFM

Thursday, October 10, 2019

Introduction

Welcome to the PatientManager (EDIS / EHR) Blog

The blog is the ongoing story behind the development of our Hospital Patient Management software - PatientManager®. Please feel free to comment and also to provide suggestions on how you would like to see it develop to match your own hospital requirements.

PatientManager® is an EDIS / EHR software solution being developed for hospitals with Emergency Departments, Admissions and Out Patient services. We aim to release this solution late 2024.

Text descriptions and images may be updated / revised over time as the software development progresses.

Dominic Murnane
Managing Director
Compass AFM

PatientManager® and its logo is a registered trademark and owned by Compass Software Technology Limited (T/A CompassAFM). All product images are protected by copyright© (2019 -2023) and may not be used without the written permission of the owner - Compass Software Technology Limited. All rights reserved.